Nowhere Girl
by Pyro Symptoms Unleashed
Summary: COMPLETE! ONE-SHOT. Please r&r, I want to know if I should put up a second chapter or not. Ginny Weasley has changed. She is the Nowhere Girl. And Drao Malfoy wants to know why. Rated PG-13 for language.
1. Default Chapter

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Author's Note: **

**_READ READ READ READ_** **_READ READ READ READ READ READ READ READ READ _**

. Oh dear gods, I thinki this could be my favoirite one-shot. I need to know what you think, because I have a second part written. So I want to know if it's good like this, or if you want the second part. Gotta hurry, so I can get your reviews. (Wink wink nudge nudge). Thanks!

**Disclaimer:** The chacters and setting belong to the magnificent J.K. Rowling, and the song Ginny begins to sing is from the AWESOME muggle band The Beatles, called Nowhere Man, adapted to fit the plot line. Actually, this sond was _not_ the inspiration for this fic, the inspiration was an abstract piece I just finished. But Nowhere Man fit so perfectly, so...All else in the story is mine.

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**Nowhere Girl

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No one knew where Ginny Weasley always seemed to disappear to.

It had started in her fifth year. Fifteen years brought about changes in her which people took a few seconds out of their lives to pause and wonder at vaguely before going back to their lives. Ginny Weasley was quiet and smart, that's what everyone knew about her. But aside from that, and that she had six older brothers, a supposed crush on perfect Harry Potter and ragged hand-me-downs, people didn't know that much about her.

And in her sixth year, it was as if someone had come in the middle of the night and taken away a little red-headed girl with bright eyes and replaced her with a cold, intelligent woman with all the answers of the world in her brown eyes, locked away behind lips that never spoke.

In her sixth year, Ginny Weasley began to disappear. At first, people just assumed that she was off in the library studying for a test, or helping down at Hagrid's hut, or working after in one of her classes. But then people began to notice that she wasn't in any of those places. As a matter of fact, she wasn't anywhere. The only time anyone knew where she was was during her classes. It was never guaranteed that she would be down in the Great Hall eating, or in the Gryffindor common room, or even her own dormitory at night.

She was a ghost, a phantom, a spirit. She no longer glowed with life, or bounced merrily down the halls, laughing with her friends. She floated from place to place as if in a dream. She spoke to no one, and absolutely no one. Her brother was too busy with his girlfriend, Hermione, and Harry was too busy being perfect.

Her teachers had to strain to get answers out of her. And then it was always: "Yes." Or "No." or perhaps a quick, memorized definition or explanation. She immersed herself in her work, or so everyone assumed, because she was making perfect grades. But she was Nowhere. A Nowhere girl. Living Nowhere. Being Nowhere. Seeing nothing. Hearing nothing. Nothing.

The only person she _ever_ spoke to was Luna Lovegood. The only time anyone ever saw her speak was with the strange blonde Ravenclaw who talked to the moon and played with the wind and danced with the rain.

And it was strange that once or twice, Ginny Weasley could be found. Found talking to the moon, or playing with the wind, or dancing with the rain and Luna. But aside from that, she was Nowhere.

And Draco Malfoy hated it. It wasn't that he cared, or anything along those lines. It just bothered him. The way Potter's damned eyes and hair and scar bothered him. The way Granger's bushy hair and big teeth and know-it-all attitude bothered him. The way boy Weasley's red hair, long nose, and attachment to Potter bothered him.

She was untouchable. He used to love getting a rise from her. Potter was never good with verbal sparring matches; he always growled a few things and then threw down his books and whipped out his wand. Granger was always avoiding his gaze and words and telling the other two to 'just ignore him'. And boy Weasley was all fists and no brains.

But girl Weasley, or so he thought of her, was different. She was the only person in the entire school who could really give him a good, albeit spiteful, conversation. She could whip insults off that razor-sharp tongue of hers and past those sweet lips faster than anyone else. And pathetic though it was, he had enjoyed those matches.

In her fifth year, she seemed to only grow better at it. For some reason she seemed constantly angry and always ready for a fight with him. She sometimes stared at him, half-frightened, half-confused, before lashing out. And he had enjoyed it.

And in her sixth year, she was Nowhere. No more fighting. If he ever tried to get a rise out of her, she would either consider him with empty eyes or else completely ignore him and not even look at him.

And so it came to be that Draco became obsessed. His house mates noticed it, but they thought he liked her. They were wrong. He just wanted to get her mad. Upset. Hell, even sad. Something to make her alive again. Something to make her somewhere.

He insulted her looks, her family, her friends, her clothes, anything he could think of. The worst he would get was a faint eye roll, not even worthy of recognition. He then started rumors. About all sorts of horrible things that certainly pristine Ginny Weasley would not do. Still nothing. She was never around to hear them she was, after all, the Nowhere girl. If she did hear them, she just went off to talk with Lovegood.

Draco was lost. He didn't know what to do, and even more, he didn't know why it mattered so much.

And there was one day. One day. One day where she was somewhere. They'd actually seen her at breakfast. It was the first time she had entered the great hall in nearly two years. But she hadn't sat down. She hadn't eaten. She hadn't talked to Lovegood, or any of her friends. She hadn't even looked at anyone, or acknowledged that everyone was looking at her. She simply marched up to the front table and solemnly handed Dumbledore a piece of parchment. And walked out. Dumbledore didn't even bother to read the parchment. He just slipped the paper into his robes and went back to eating, as everyone else eventually did.

Everyone but Draco Malfoy. She was there. She had been somewhere. But now she was Nowhere again. Why? And why did he care so much? He couldn't eat. Not when she had been somewhere. He had to find her Nowhere. He had to know where she was. Not the location, but where she was. Because even when he saw her, she wasn't there. That was why she was so devoid of life. She just wasn't there.

She really was the Nowhere Girl.

The day, that one day that started out with her being somewhere, continued. Draco Malfoy attended his classes, and Ginny Weasley, the Nowhere Girl, attended hers. But just attended. She was Nowhere in between. At lunch, she was Nowhere.

And then it was the last class of the day. It was Friday, which meant that the Nowhere Girl would be somewhere. Somewhere no one else knew. Somewhere with Luna Lovegood. And a plan was forming in Draco Malfoy's mind. It blocked out whatever Professor McGonagall was trying to teach him and clouded all other thoughts.

Today he would try something new. Today she would be someone.

Finally, after minutes that fell deadly-quiet to everyone but Draco Malfoy, the class was over. He grabbed his things and rushed out. She was somewhere right now. And for once, he knew where that somewhere was. She would be leaving her Potions class, right near the Slytherin common rooms. All Draco Malfoy had to do was to catch her before she became the Nowhere Girl again.

He dashed down the hallways and in shorter time than he would have thought possible, he was just outside Professor Snape, the Potions Master's classroom. Hesitantly, he peered in. Snape was standing at his desk, speaking to the only person left in that classroom. The red hair and silence of her nodded answer told him she was not the Nowhere Girl yet. She was still somewhere.

"You understand, Miss Weasley, that if you care to speak or interact with your peers, that you could become the greatest student this Potions class had seen in a century? Just talk, say something. You have a great opportunity here…for the love of Merlin, _I'm_ offering you a spot as my personal assistant. A role which has never been offered to anyone outside Slytherin, or even a girl for that matter. Will you please, just speak?" Draco Malfoy was astonished to see his Potions Master practically pleading with a Weasley Gryffindor girl.

And the Nowhere Girl, even though she was somewhere right now, was still Nowhere. She merely shook her head slowly, the rest of her body a statue. Draco Malfoy found that he was shaking his head along with her, but for different reasons. He was Snape's current personal assistant this year, with an offer to come back after graduation and work part time at Hogwarts next year.

Snape sighed heavily, frustrated. He sat down in his seat and rubbed his temples wearily. "Very well, Miss Weasley, but please, for your sake, just think about it. Dumbledore's informed me of your…current lifestyle, and I know this would be a rather large change, but just please, think about it." He begged, and with a wave of his hand, waved her from the room.

Ginny Weasley nodded, turned, and walked out the door with almost no sound. She was about to become the Nowhere Girl once more. Unfortunately, someone was standing just outside the doorway who made that impossible.

She saw Draco and stopped dead, not moving or even blinking, just regarding him with that steady brown-amber gaze. And it suddenly stuck Draco that that gaze was terribly sad. That she was terribly sad. That there was something to the nothing girl. He stepped forward. She still said nothing, but her gaze dropped and she stepped aside as if to go around him.

His arm went out to stop her. And for the first time, she moved. Not like she was in a trance, but actually moved. She jumped away, clutching at the arm that he had nearly touched, her eyes burning with life. And just as suddenly, she blinked and it was gone. She was the Nowhere Girl again.

"Weasley." He began, thinking how strange it was. All these months he'd been thinking of her as the Nowhere Girl. She just turned and started walking away as if he wasn't there. As if she wasn't there. And Draco turned and ran after her, running along side her as she quickened her pace.

"Listen, Weasley, just stop for a moment, I want to talk to you." He ran in front of her and she stopped to avoid running into him. She stared dully at him, almost expectantly. "I want to talk to you, and I want you to talk back to me." He said, but she cut him off with a shake of her head, side-stepped him, and began walking again.

Draco paced to her side, keeping in stride with her. "Just talk to me, damnit! Why? Why don't you ever talk? Why don't you ever live? Why aren't you ever anywhere? Who are you? ANSWER ME!" he yelled, suddenly reaching out and grabbing her wrist, making her stop.

Ginny's eyes widened to an almost impossible point and her gaze flew to his hand on her wrist. She jerked her hand, but he wouldn't let go.

And suddenly, she was alive. For a moment, she was Ginny Weasley, and not the Nowhere Girl. She yanked her hand back repeatedly as she screamed at the top of her voice.

"LET ME GO, LET ME GO, LET ME GO!" she screamed, tears starting to fall from those eyes that were seeing. Shocked, Draco dropped her hand. She immediately pulled it back, cradling it to her chest as if it was broken. Tears were now streaming from her face.

"DON'T YOU EVER, EVER TOUCH ME! GET AWAY FROM ME!" she added, making a kicking, jerking motion as he tried to reach for her, to comfort her, to shut her up, to do anything to stop her screaming and crying.

And then she threw her head back and screamed. It was a cry that echoed with all the pain of a broken lover, or a widowed wife, or an orphaned child. It raged with raw pain and fear, and could have put any banshee to shame. It penetrated Draco's very center and overbalanced his emotions so that he felt like screaming and crying as well. Her pain seeped into him, making him shudder, and into the walls, making them creak with pain, and into the very foundation of the earth, which seemed to tremble with fear.

Every student in the school heard that scream. It seemed as if the walls had swallowed up her pain and, finding it too unbearable, spit it back out, so that her cry ricocheted from wall to wall, spreading like a disease throughout the castle.

And then the source of the cry was gone. The pain still swept through the castle, but the one who felt it had fled. Draco opened eyes he hadn't even realized he'd clenched shut just in time to see the Nowhere Girl disappear around a corner.

Draco followed at top speed, but when he rounded the corner a second later, it was no use. Ginny Weasley was gone. And wherever she was, she was the Nowhere Girl, living in her Nowhere World, thinking of Nothing, seeing Nothing, hearing Nothing, but feeling everything.

The next day everyone was talking of the Nowhere Girl. They all knew about her scream, and about how Draco Malfoy had been the one to cause it. There was nearly a riot when they heard that she had spoken to him. People from all houses crowded around him to hear. But he didn't speak. He just glared.

The Nowhere Girl was Nowhere again. And her brother was shooting daggers at Draco. Sighing heavily, Draco watched as the crowd dispersed and the boy Weasley stood and stalked over to him, followed hesitantly by Granger and Potter. He stopped just in front of Draco, his hands clenched at his fists, and his eyes seemed tired and more intelligent that Draco had ever seen them.

"What did you do to my sister?" he gritted out through clenched teeth, shaking off Hermione, who was tugging at his sleeve. Draco returned the glare. "I didn't do anything." He said sullenly, going back to his breakfast.

The only thing that kept Ron from throwing himself at Draco was Harry and Hermione's hands holding him back and the knowledge that if he tried anything, Snape would see and only be too glad to kick him out. Still, he hissed angrily at the Slytherin seventh year.

"Don't you dare give me that load of bollocks! You did something to her and I want to know what it was." He pressed his face closer and Draco was suddenly struck by how pained it was. "Tell me. Tell me what the hell you did to make my sister speak. Tell me why she hasn't spoken to me or mum, or anyone but Luna and now you. Tell me why my sister spoke to you before she spoke to me. She's my fucking sister. And she hasn't spoken to me in over a year. She didn't come home this summer. Mum was frantic. Just a note from Dumbledore saying that she would be staying the summer here. She hasn't been sleeping in her dormitory for the past five weeks, and she hasn't even looked at me in longer than that, so don't you dare tell me you didn't do anything!" he said, practically shouting now.

Draco's mouth was open. "I-I- really didn't- didn't do anything. I just tried to talk to her." He protested, not mentioning that he'd touched her. Ron straightened suddenly, his face becoming severely dispassionate except for the pain in his eyes that rendered him so much like the Nowhere Girl.

"So have I, but it never works." He said sadly, and left.

It was Saturday, and everyone eventually got over the news of the Nowhere Girl and went about their day, enjoying themselves. It was Saturday, and no one ever saw the Nowhere Girl on Saturdays. It was one of her Nowhere days. But Draco just couldn't go about his day. He had to find her Nowhere.

And so it was, pacing the empty halls, in a deserted hallway, that he heard soft footsteps hurrying away from him. And though it could have been any other student in the entire castle, Draco broke into a run. He peered around the corner.

Walking swiftly down the hall was Luna Lovegood, a bucket of water in her hands, which she was careful not to spill. She walked nearly silently and quickly, and Draco hurried after her, in hopes that this one girl who was the only one the Nowhere Girl spoke to, would lead him to her Nowhere.

After many corridors, Luna Lovegood finally stopped in front of a room Draco had never seen in his life. She rapped twice on the door, then once more and whispered so softly that Draco almost didn't hear it: "Abstract." The doorway opened and she walked in. the door shut immediately behind her and Draco was left out in the hallway.

He waited and waited for what seemed like days, his eyes boring holes into the door, when finally it opened again, and Luna Lovegood left the room, shaking her head sadly, her hands empty. She turned and walked the other way.

Draco hurried to the door. He knocked twice, then once as Lovegood had, and then whispered the same word. "Abstract." He said and the door split in half and moved apart, letting him in.

What he walked into was a small room, complete with furniture. In one corner was a bed, with deep plum and emerald sheets and pillows. There was a single, large floor-length window-door that led out onto a tiny balcony. There was a single table, shoved into the corner of the room, books and papers scattered across it. The walls of the impressive, yet small room, were deep, harmonious colors. Stormy grey-blue, dark blood red, fiery amber, sea green, velvety violet, and tangerine orange.

However, you couldn't really see the walls much, as they were covered in pictures. Pictures, photographs, paintings, sketches, engravings, you name it. Draco allowed his jaw to drop as he gazed at the different pieces of art, that ranged from all different ends of the artistic spectrum.

One wall was covered in realistic paintings. Draco recognized a painting in bright, vibrant colors, as one of the lake. Another showed the Whomping Willow. There were scenes from the Forbidden Forest, and Hogwarts grounds, as well as a few he didn't recognize. Whether dark or bright, they were all captivating. They showed real talent such as Draco had never seen outside a museum.

His gaze moved along the wall. There were portraits here, some in pencil, some in charcoal, some in paint. There was Potter, leaning down on his broom to catch a snitch, his face contorted in concentration. There was boy Weasley, a garden-gnome in his hands, grinning happily. There was Granger, her giant ginger cat in her arms as she stared out a window, with books all around her. There were others as well. Luna Lovegood was the most frequent. In one dark one, she was standing alone in the rain, with a glowing aura shining around her and protecting her from the rain. She was in a fantastical one, lying on the crescent moon, kissing individual stars. In yet another, she was standing in the middle of a clearing, her arms raised to catch orange and yellow leaves that fell from a tree.

Draco noticed that they weren't all realistic. The wall over the bed was covered in abstract pieces. Bright ones with swirling patterns, and dark ones with bold, angry streaks, and even slashes in the paintings. And on the last wall, Draco gasped.

It was covered with him. Well, not exactly him, the Lovegood girl was in a few, but most of them showed Draco. Some were paintings, but most were charcoal. In one, he was sneering down at a Magical History book. In another, he had caught the snitch and was waving it triumphantly in the air. In another, he was walking along a pathway, the only light thing in the dark picture, head down, deep in thought. And in the last one, he was in the Great Hall, sitting where he always did, and laughing.

And Draco had to admit to the talent. He knew how he looked, and it frightened him a bit how strong the likeness was. He leaned forward to try and decipher the scrawled handwriting in the lower right corner when a loud clang came from behind a large, floor-length picture of Hogwarts on a dark night from the lake perspective. Looking closer, Draco realized that the reflected moon painted on the lake surface was actually a door knob and that the whole picture was a door.

Silently, he turned the knob and entered the room. What he saw shocked him and made him stop dead in his tracks. He was in some sort of art room…like a studio or something. Unfinished paintings littered the room, and paint-splattered sheets were hastily flung over some.

In the center of the room, however, what drew Draco's attention was a person standing in front of a very large canvas. Cans of paint stood around her. She was dressed in small beige shorts and an oversized button-down long sleeve, cut of at the elbow. Both were mercilessly paint-spattered. The girl's arms were covered in paint up to the elbow, and she was constantly dipping them into the cans of paint and flinging it at the canvas in different spots. While Draco didn't see any rhyme or reason to it, the girl obviously did, because every once in a while, she's smear the paint and start over. The painting was huge and impressive, but dark. She hands went into the black paint bucket the most. She flung red, orange, blue, green, violet, and other colors on the black, sometimes mixing it together, sometimes making gouges in the paint with her fingernails, leaving streaks of color.

But what captivated Draco was that for the whole time, she was talking to herself. Hell, it wasn't even talking, it was crying, screaming, raging, even kicking over the occasional paint bucket.

And the silent Nowhere Girl was speaking. It was her, Ginny Weasley. Making up for all the time that she never spoke, never lived, never saw, never heard, never did anything. Here was her Nowhere, but it was definitely somewhere to her.

"Stupid…pompous…slimy…arrogant…stuck-up…perfect…smarmy…self-confidant…daft…pretentious…conceited…son-of-a-bitch!" she suddenly screamed, slashing red pant across one side with her nails.

"Where does he get off touching me? NO ONE FUCKING TOUCHES ME!" she screamed randomly, flinging more black at the canvas as Draco watched in speechless silence. She began to sob. "No one goddamn touches me. Not even him. Especially not him. I gave it up long ago. DO YOU HEAR ME? I GAVE IT UP LONG AGO! YOU HAVE MY FUCKING HOPES, MY DREAMS, MY LOVES, MY LIFE, JUST LET ME KEEP MY GODDAMN ART!" she yelled up at the ceiling, splattering paint at it as well.

She turned back to the painting and screamed at it, flinging paint recklessly at it, alternately scratching and smearing. "No one touches me…like I don't know what they call me behind my back…Nowhere Girl…well, I like my fucking Nowhere. I don't need anybody, certainly not him. I don't need him, I don't want him, I can't have him." She sobbed, suddenly crumpling to the floor wearily.

And before he could move, she began to sing in a soft, broken voice. It wasn't great, she didn't have a good voice, but it was heart-breaking to see what was once such a strong girl fall so bitterly and sing to herself.

"_She's a real nowhere girl,  
Sitting in her nowhere land,  
Making all her nowhere plans for nobody._

_Doesn't have a point of view,  
Knows not where she's going to,  
Isn't she a bit like you and me?  
Nowhere girl, please listen,  
You don't know what you're missing,  
Nowhere girl, the world is at your command."  
She's as blind as she can be,  
Just sees what she wants to see,  
Nowhere girl can you see me at all?" _

She stopped suddenly, choking on her words as she began to cry again.

This was about all Draco could take. He rushed forward, and regardless of the consequences, dropped to her side and pulled her into a tight embrace. After years of watching his father beat his mother and doing nothing about it until she died, he was not going to let any girl, especially not this one, this Nowhere Girl, feel so hurt.

And instead of screaming, or hitting, the Nowhere Girl just wrapped her arms around his back and held him just as tightly. Draco didn't care that her hands were smearing paint onto his richly made robes, or that her tears were burning hot holes into his clothes and heart. All he cared about what that she was coming out of her Nowhere World for him. She was trusting him to lead her out of the hole she's fallen in and had been so desperately pleading with everyone silently to help her out. So many paintings showed her pain and torture, what she couldn't tell to people she expressed though a different venue.

But the Nowhere Girl was holding him and crying hard on his shoulder. Her own shoulders were shaking forcefully under his hands and he held her tighter to try and stop the shaking. She was crying her pain away, finally receiving the salvation she needed to let loose the pain she'd kept pent up in her ever since her brother Charlie's death. She just needed someone to hold her. She needed security. She needed hope. She needed something solid to grasp onto.

And now she had it.


	2. Explanations and Other Meaningless Twadd...

**Author's Note: **Okay, I decided to just go ahead and just the second chapter up. This kind of explains a lot about Ginny's curren lifestyle, as Snape put it. She's just a very deep girl who cares so much for so many. Her painting is a way out of the pain when all that care gets abused. Not that I have any idea about that...and yes, I do paint. Not very well, but I did go to an art school for a few years. I'm more about emotions and expressing them now than about pointillism and color schemes. Oh well, read and enjoy, I' m working of Dancing Life diligently. Ha. And John Lennon is still alive.

**Disclaimer:** Same as the first chapter. The Beatles song Nowhere Man is at the end of the chapter. Awesome song. Bu then again, it is by The Beatles...

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**Nowhere Girl

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Draco sat holding his Nowhere Girl for what seemed like hours. The girl's eyes spent endless tears that had been where she had been: Nowhere. And finally she stopped sobbing and sat up, staring at him with hurt brown eyes suffused with tears.

"You came. To my Nowhere." She said, almost not daring to believe it. She shook her head. "No one's been in here. Except for Luna and Dumbledore." She said slowly, as if speaking was a new thing for her. Actually, it probably was. She hardly ever spoke, but now seemed to be bursting to talk. And to him. And Draco was just thinking how very uncharacteristic it was of him to just want to sit there and listen to her.

"Last year my brother Charlie died. Right in front of me. Mum finally let me go see him in Romania. And he was so happy." The tears began to fall again. "He was showing me his favorite dragon, a Chinese Fireball named Flaire when she got loose from her muzzle and started breathing fire all over the place." She started crying again and Draco pulled her to him. "And Ch-Charlie  
pushed me out of the way. B-but h-he d-didn't have time to get o-out of the w-w-way!" she sobbed painfully.

"I loved him so much. I miss him so much. All I've wanted since then was a painting of him. To remember him. But I can't ever finish them. They just hurt too much." Draco looked around the room at the unfinished paintings he hadn't really paid much attention to. Sure enough, in all of then was a good-looking red-haired man smiling boyishly, always with dragons in the background. One had a red dragon in the background, but had been slashed brutally.

"After that, I started to feel too much." Draco arched an eyebrow, and as if feeling his confusion, Ginny explained. "It's the man reason Dumbledore let me stay here over the summer. He said I was balancing on the borderline of insanity. That one incident could push me over. He said I needed to be in an isolated, protected environment, but he didn't want them to send me to St. Mungo's. So they gave me my own room. And a studio. And paint. This is my Nowhere. This is where I am. My Nowhere. Nowhere. Now here." She said softly, words that she had scrawled in moments of pain across so many drawings.

"I can live here. Alone. With my canvases and paints I'm strong. Once I get away, though, I lose it. I-I'm always scared and nervous, and I hate it when people touch me." She smiled as she thought of where she was. "Not until now, at least." She whispered as Draco cradled her against his chest. "Talking hurts so much. No one understands. They're all horrible, ugly people. I can see it now, and I hate being torn between regret that I didn't know in the first place and half-wishing I never knew. But most of all, I just miss Charlie. He understood me the best. Better than the twins, or mum. I loved him so much."

Draco touched the pad of his thumb to her cheek and wiped away the tears, wishing he had ever thought about doing this for his mother.

"That's when you come in, I guess. I was never in love with Harry." She scoffed derisively. "But good look telling that to anyone here. I thought he was great, amazing, wonderful. He saved my life. But I never loved him. And no one's ever loved me. Because everyone thinks I'm meant for Harry, no one ever bothered to talk to me but my friends." A rare smile lit her face. "Luna's been my saving grace. She lost someone she loved, too. She sees the things I see. She feels what I feel. She understands why sometimes I feel like crying in the rain or running through the wind, just to feel something pure and untouched. Everyone else here is so concerned about their goddamn image. They'll never know the power of sleeping under the moon, feeling her silver gaze touch you, make you pure again. Luna understands that."

"I hated everyone after Charlie." I've missed Ron and Harry and Hermione, but they're too busy with each other to bother about me. Luna's been the one thing that's kept me alive." She flushed. "That and you." She added under her breath.

Draco arched an eyebrow and pulled back. "What?" he asked. Ginny blushed and even deeper shade of red. "You were the only one who didn't look horrible and hideous. Which is odd, because that's how I always used to see you. But after Charlie, you were like me. Like Luna. But your name stopped you. We're free, but you were chained by the name Malfoy. I thought you were so sad. And you didn't even know it. I spent hours watching you. You know that place where you go on the weekends, out by the lake? It's right below my balcony. I had to know more about you. I've stayed up some nights wondering if you did anything like I do, like paint, or draw, something that keeps you sane. I wondered if your superiority was like my silence. Just a cover. I wanted to know you. I wanted to see your Nowhere. I wanted to care for you."

She seemed to have thrown embarrassment to the wind, because she was now just staring down at her hands, covered in paint.

"I write."

Ginny's head snapped up. "You- what?" she asked, swallowing her surprise. Draco grinned with some difficulty. It was a new thing for him. "I write. Nothing major, nothing great. But I write. Not really poetry or stories, but my feelings. It's what keeps me going. Aside from figuring you out."

Ginny flushed. "Me?" she asked, breathless. "No one ever notices me." She said to herself. Draco shook his head and cupped her chin with his forefinger. "I did." He said softly, and gently planted a kiss on her forehead. Ginny sighed and leaned back on him, truly at ease and peaceful with the world for the first time, not counting the time she spent with Luna.

"But you'll be gone next year. And I'll be the Nowhere Girl again. Back to silence and painting and nothing." She whispered wistfully, rubbing her cheek against his robes. His hand came up to pet her head. "Not necessarily. If you take that personal assistant role for Snape, you could see me every day. I'm coming back next year to work part-time here and train in Potions more. If you took the assistant position, we'd be working together."

Ginny looked up at him, startled. What he said was normal enough, but what he meant under the words meant so much more. What he was proposing would entail a lot of work and practicing bringing herself together. She smiled up at him softly.

"Do I still get to paint?" she asked timidly, her smile widening. He grinned. "Of course. But I expect you not to be the Nowhere Girl anymore. Between me and painting, you don't have much time to do else." He gazed at her; she was nothing beautiful…on the outside. But her eyes…her beautiful eyes showed what was on the inside. And it was what was in them that Draco felt himself falling for.

"We'd see each other every day?" Ginny asked.

"Every day." Draco nodded, wrapping his arms tighter around her.

"You know, I think I'd like that." She whispered.

He grinned down at her, smiling for the first true time in years since before his mother had died. "So will I." he said softly, caressing her face with his fingers before covering her mouth in the sweetest kiss ever to have been enclosed in Hogwart's mysterious walls.

Dumbledore was strolling by the Nowhere Room, sucking on a lemon-drop. He stopped and looked harshly at the door for a moment, before his face broke into a beaming smile. He gave the door a knowing glance before whistling jauntily as he walked down the stairs to the Potions dungeons.

He had to inform Professor Snape that he had a personal assistant for the next year.

* * *

_He's a real nowhere man,  
Sitting in his nowhere land,  
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody._

_Doesn't have a point of view,  
Knows not where he's going to,  
Isn't he a bit like you and me?  
Nowhere man, please listen,  
You don't know what you're missing,  
Nowhere man, the world is at your command.  
He's as blind as he can be,  
Just sees what he wants to see,  
Nowhere man can you see me at all?_

_Doesn't have a point of view,  
Knows not where he's going to,  
Isn't he a bit like you and me?  
Nowhere man, don't worry,  
Take your time, don't hurry,  
Leave it all till somebody else  
Lend you a hand.  
He's a real nowhere man,  
Sitting in his nowhere land,  
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody_


End file.
